Abstract:

The study investigated the development of public and private law textbook collections in the law libraries South East Universities in relation to the Council of Legal Education standards. The scope consisted of 163 titles of local and foreign public and private law textbooks listed by Council of Legal Education as accreditation bench mark and involve seven law faculty libraries in the universities South East Geopolitical zone of Nigeria that offer law programme. The instrument for data collection was the standard check list released by Council of Legal Education. This check list was found appropriate and was adopted for this study. Two research questions were formulated for the study. The findings showed that only two law libraries in the South East Geographical zone of Nigeria, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka (NAU) and University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus (UNEC) met the Council of Legal Education accreditation standards in Law of Evidence and Law of Contract respectively in Public and Private Law textbook collections. Recommendations were made which include among others, the need for periodic assessment of the collections by the regulating bodies to ensure improved collections.